Random News Stories

[Marcel Birgelen]

There's a Wikipedia article about the phenomenon, but nowhere it explains the reason behind choosing an opossum instead of grandma's old undies...

[Bobby Henderson]

I'm glad they put a stop to that "tradition." Possums are a little on the weird side (they sure walk and run in an oddly wiggly way), but they're ultimately beneficial creatures. One thing they love doing is eating ticks. Freaking deer ticks can get horrible here in Oklahoma, so anything possums can do to cut that parasite population will be great. Recently I saw a wildlife camera video of a possum eating ticks off a deer's head. The deer stood still and let the possum do it.

[Leo Enticknap]

Agreed that "dropping" the live creature is pretty disgusting, but I can't see the harm with the town in Georgia using the taxidermized one, especially as he appears to have passed away of natural causes.

[Dave Macaulay]

This is pretty weird but gets weirder. Even though the possum is not killed, just traumatized, the state has an exemption for possum cruelty for New Year's Day and the two days before and after...purely to avoid interfering with this "festivity". During those days, under state law, you can legally do anything to live possums: light 'em on fire, drag a bunch behind your pickup, fire them from cannons... anything. Let your imagination run wild, head for NC with your possum traps, and go wild: you have two more days!

[Buck Wilson]

What in seven colored fuck? Imagine how backwoods your community must be for something this stupid to become TRADITION.

God. Imagine putting a DOG, who TRUSTS HUMANS in that situation and how bad that would very obviously be. Now TEN FOLD that situation by trapping a wild animal and taking it out of it's habitat to do something this dumb??

[Brad Miller]

What a stupid idea. What's a possum got to do with time and the changing of the year? It doesn't take a genius to realize that animal is likely terrified beyond anything it has ever experienced before, particularly when the box is spinning along with the loud noises and lights. Then again anyone who doesn't understand this is cruel to the helpless animal is clearly NOT a genius in the slightest.

From the video I couldn't even see the animal in the cage, so why not use a stuffed one like Tallapoosa does. But then again, WHY A POSSUM???

This is just dumb.

[Leo Enticknap]

From Yesterday's New York Post:

In this ‘war on New Year’s’, the animals won.

A North Carolina town has nixed its tradition of dropping a live possum at the stroke of midnight — the odd celebration born as a “redneck response” to the Big Apple’s classic Times Square ball drop, according to a new report.

Mayor James Reid of Andrews, N.C. — a tiny community of just 1,800 — told the Wall Street Journal on Monday that he was canning the event because he was sick of receiving protest calls over the two-decade tradition.

“It’s done,” Reid said. “They can stick a fork in it.”

The New Year’s Eve marsupial drop began in the 1990s and attracted hundreds of revelers each year who gathered to see a live possum lowered in a clear plastic box at midnight.

But animal rights groups said the practice of putting a shy, nocturnal animal in a brightly lit box surrounded by fireworks and large crowds was cruel, according to the report.

Millie, the possum used in last year’s drop, developed an infection after her leg was caught in a trap and she had to have it amputated, the report said.

The drop was originally held in neighboring Brasstown but was move to Andrews last year when the festival founder retired.

Reid said he wanted to keep the tradition alive but on Monday declared “Times are changing.”

“Our plan is to have an awesome party and not have any live animals involved whatsoever.”

The town of Tallapoosa in Georgia also has an annual New Year’s Eve possum drop but stresses that their possum is stuffed.

Republican lawmakers have repeatedly tried to make outrage over the North Carolina tradition a political argument and passed legislation including the “Opossum Right to Work Act” in 2013 to keep it alive.

“People in the mountains get tired of people in the city telling them what they can do and what they can’t do,” local Sen. Jim Davis said Monday.

“It’s a very innocuous event,” he said. “I don’t understand the big to-do over it.”